A male fruit fly in a laboratory chamber extends his wings and vibrates them to produce his species' version of a love song. A female fly stays nearby listening. Suddenly, a green light flashes across the chamber for a fraction of a second. The male's song cuts off mid-note and his wings fold. The female, not impressed by the interrupted serenade, walks away. The culprit? An AI system that watched the male begin his courtship dance and shut down his song-producing brain cells. Developed by scientists at Nagoya University and their collaborators from Osaka University and Tohoku University, the AI can watch and recognize animal behaviors and control the specific brain circuits that drive them. Published in Science Advances, the study presents an advanced AI system that can identify which animal performs a behavior in a group and selectively target only that animal’s brain cells during social interactions. 

Xingjie Ni, associate professor of electrical engineering at Penn State, and his team recently developed a new device that can accelerate and dramatically reduce the energy cost of AI computation, which they detailed in a paper published in Science Advances. Their system routes light through an “infinity mirror” like loop of tiny optical elements, encoding data directly into the beams of light and capturing the resulting light patterns with a microscopic camera.

Scientists designed vaccines to treat HPV-positive head and neck cancer. All vaccines had the same ingredients but different, strategically designed structures. One vaccine vastly outperformed the others, showing that vaccine design depends on structure as well as medicinal components.

A drone developed by scientists from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, equipped with low‑cost air quality sensors, has revealed unexpectedly high concentrations of particulate matter at around 100 metres above ground level in Delhi. These new vertical insights could play an important role in urban haze understanding and mitigation.A drone equipped with low‑cost air quality sensors has revealed unexpectedly high concentrations of particulate matter at around 100 metres above ground level in Delhi. These new vertical insights could play an important role in urban haze understanding and mitigation. 

The findings, published in Nature npj Clean Air, demonstrate the feasibility of measuring air pollution up to 100 metres using an affordable, custom-built drone platform.

Researchers at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) have developed a new methodology for a robot to learn how to move its arms autonomously by combining a type of observational learning with intercommunication between its limbs. This breakthrough, recently presented at the world's most important robotics conference, IROS 2025, represents a further step towards achieving more natural and easily teachable service robots capable of performing assistive tasks in domestic environments, such as setting and clearing the table, ironing, or tidying up the kitchen.

T-shirts that warn of excessive sun exposure or labels that reveal damage to light‑sensitive materials: researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a coating that makes this possible—using proteins and bacteria. The coating reliably detects contact with UV-A radiation, is bio‑based, and could open the door to a wide range of new materials that draw on the biological functions of cells.

In the rapidly evolving world of two-dimensional materials, a small twist can have outsized consequences. Since the discovery that rotational misalignment between atomically thin crystals can reshape their electronic behaviour, moiré engineering has become a powerful design principle for quantum matter.

The soil microbiome is critical for the ecosystem, and agricultural practices that promote microbial diversity can support plant health and help protect against pests. But it is unclear which practices are most beneficial, and what motivates farmers to choose them. In a new study, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Cornell University analyzed surveys and soil samples from 85 organic farmers in New York to investigate the interaction between beliefs, management practices, and soil microbiome functions.

Many people with hypertension, a risk factor for strokes, heart attacks and kidney disease, do not have elevated blood pressure when examined in a doctor’s office.